What now for Chelsea?
They're getting somewhere. Why are they changing it?
Data is from FBRef unless stated otherwise
FIFA set out on a long and arduous process to find the best club side in the world, and concluded that the answer was Chelsea.
I don’t think anyone who genuinely likes football believes this. Chelsea finished fourth in the Premier League, 15 points behind champions Liverpool. They won the Club World Cup by finishing second in the group stage behind Flamengo, before knockout games against Benfica, Palmeiras and Fluminense until they finally did defeat a legitimately top tier side in Paris Saint-Germain. That’s what it takes to call yourselves “World Champions”, which I’ve no doubt the people currently in charge at Chelsea will be absolutely thrilled to say.
It might not actually be the most important trophy in the world, but in all seriousness, it is a trophy, and that’s two Chelsea have won recently. They successfully qualified for the Champions League on top of that, which must have been the primary domestic aim. They did this with the youngest average age in the Premier League (weighted by minutes played). This is exciting. Chelsea have a fresh, young side that should keep improving without too much work. Leave it alone, add a couple additions here and there, and they could potentially have a title-winning side in a few years’ time.
So… why does it feel like Chelsea are changing everything again?
They’re once more intent on spending big for a whole raft of young players, especially in attacking areas. They’re funding this at least partly by selling Noni Madueke, a relative success story from a previous round of this, to Arsenal. In the past, I’ve assumed the BlueCo consortium’s strategy was to spend heavily on young players early on, pushing the spending rules to the limit, as a sort of initial investment that will reap rewards in the long run. I figured they’d aim to sign a lot of players in the first couple of windows to build a new project, then watch revenues rise as those footballers gradually developed and improved the team with transfer fees and long term contracts locked in. That did happen, so I assumed the next phase would be sit back and really watch the team grow. But that’s not what they’re doing at all. Let’s try and make sense of it.